A Caffeinated Blog

Antifragile

Have you ever wondered how an author puts the ideas for a book together? I sure have, and over the past couple of years I’ve had the great pleasure to watch one of my intellectual heroes in action (even though I don’t agree with him on everything). The author I’m referring to is Nassim Taleb, and the book is called Antifragile. For many parts of the book, Nassim bounced ideas off those who follow his Facebook page, a page which he uses strictly for philosophical discussions. [1]

Anyway, I recently finished reading the book, and I can assure you that I savored it very slowly. I can also assure you that I will reread it again in the very near future. Since I have plans to submit an essay review of the book to some other publications, I will not be writing one here on Coffee Theory. Rather, I’m hoping to find time in the near future to write a series of posts about ideas contained within the book (stay tuned).

What I love about Taleb is that he is as an independent thinker as a human being can possibly be. He has no pressure to publish and his intellectual pursuits are freely chosen (this is true authenticity). He has the courage to call people charlatans, frauds, and hucksters, a quality I greatly admire. He also puts his money, both figuratively and literally, where his mouth is. Some people, not surprisingly, despise him for what they perceive to arrogance. I, however, can’t help but notice that only egomaniacs are offended by an egomaniac.

Anyway, here is the brief blurb I wrote for my Amazon review: “Antifragile is excellent, absolutely excellent — and this beautiful book contains ideas that, if properly digested and put into practice, will change your life. While reading Antifragile I had the (obvious) epiphany that the book itself is antifragile. Bravo Monsieur Taleb!” [2]